The Laya was gone. A Madu ship had snuck up on them in the darkness and quickly incapacitated the already crippled ship. The Carpathia wasn’t in a position to help, having pulled farther forward. Graves had the soldiers readying to fight and the ballistae and onagers manned while he decided the best option to take.

There was a now-visible ship firing on the sinking Laya. It was possible it was a single hunter taking the opportunity to finish off a wounded ship, but there was also the possibility there were more ships hiding in the night. The moons and stars were cloaked by overcast clouds, making the sea a dark, void-looking place. A ship wouldn’t even need a stealth field on a night like this.

Going to help the Laya could be falling right into a trap. Running could mean the loss of our best chance to destroy our enemy before they did the same thing to us.

I know what I’d do: slip beneath the waves, go right underneath the Laya to rescue any I could, then hunt about for the attackers, destroying them from below. Of course, the Carpathia didn’t have the same abilities as the Death’s Consort.

Graves gave the order to raise sails, and when I went to help the petty officers Siebert bade me to stay. It seemed that having an amateur war mage on the quarterdeck was more important than having a high level seaman aloft.

“Mr. Frederick, you currently have control of the flood barrier, correct?” Graves asked quietly.

“Correct.”

“Pass it off to Mr. Dom. What’s your mana sitting at?”

Frederick gave Graves an inquiring look. “I’d need a potion to be at full strength, but I’ve still got over 300. Why?”

“Can you pull off that lightning storm?”

Frederick pursed his lips, glancing at where we’d last glimpsed the Laya’s attacker and the cloud coverage above. “Yes, but I’d be nearly useless to you for the next hour.”

Graves nodded. “There’s two ships out here. They sunk the Laya because they can’t take her home, but they want to capture ships and the Carpathia will do. We’re being baited. I expect a ship to show itself before we reach the Laya, trying to distract us from rescuing any survivors. When it does, I want you to take it out. The soldiers will prepare to repel boarders from the other vessel that will be sneaking up on us.”

I raised an eyebrow at Graves’ assumptions and directions, but he had the tactician levels, not me. He’d also fought the Madu specifically, and no doubt been briefed on their tactics. This very well could play out as he expected.

“Dom,” Graves continued. “If Mr. Frederick is able, he will retake control of the flood barrier after his attack. You will provide support and oversight for the combatants. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I said. This was exactly the scenario he’d predicted when writing up our contract, and I wasn't about to object to the experience coming my way. I had a profession to develop.

“Good. Prepare yourselves, gentlemen. Lieutenant, I have the helm, see to the soldiers …”

Graves gave out more directions, moving off to find his other officers and give them their own orders. Frederick and I stood waiting at the prow. I was using my domain to make sure no ships snuck up within my sphere, though I wasn’t sure if a sufficiently powerful stealth field would be able to hide from me.

“Did you ever think you were going to be a combatant?” Frederick asked suddenly. “I mean, in battles and all? I never did. Even as a boy, I thought I could get all my XP through grand quests.” He chuckled ruefully. “My focus was always on learning and mastering magic. If I hadn’t been traded to the navy by my society I’d never have even seen a battlefield.”

“Really?” I said, surprised. “How’d you get your levels without it?”

“A handful of minor quests,” he said. “but really it was through cooperation with the adventuring guild. Those chaps will do escorts for a reasonable fee, letting mages build up their levels. I also had tutors to guide me through naturally advancing my intelligence and wisdom as far as possible before investing attribute points.”

“Nice gig. No, I used to actively run from battles.”

“Run from them?” Frederick said with an incredulous laugh. “How’d you go from that to being a mercenary?”

“Didn’t run fast enough.” I japed, prompting more laughter from him. He was keyed up, looking to deal with the jitters of pre-battle stress. How was I so calm? I didn’t really know. Maybe it was my backdoor option of simply disappearing into the sea if things got too dangerous.

Graves had us raise the sails and turn the ship so we moved with the current. We could have made better time by using some wind to rush to the Laya, but rushing was foolishness. We knew we were being baited.

It was over an hour before we got close enough to the Laya to hear the stranded men clinging to her hull, the ship holding out on the surface as long as she could to give the last of her crew a chance at life. As our men were shouting back to theirs, incoming fire peppered our starboard side, a ship dropping out of stealth illuminated by a few lanterns. They were at extreme range, the attack designed to expose themselves and challenge us rather than cripple us with a surprise strike. So far, Graves was right.

“Nice of them to illuminate themselves,” Frederick said, readying himself.

“Wait …” I started to say, but Frederick was already casting. He’d been given his orders, and was eager to fulfill them and have his role in this battle finished.

We’d talked a bit about the theory of lightning, though he’d forbade me from practicing while on the Carpathia. I’d actually grasped the principles of the flow while with the storm dragon, leading to my shocking touch spell, but missed a critical perspective switch; the mage was not ‘creating’ the lightning. The mage was opening the path for flow between two points. Once opened, lightning came. My mistake back then had been opening a path heedless of the direction of flow. Rather than shooting lighting from my hands, I’d invited it to strike me.

Frederick was not casting a simple lightning spell. He was casting a lightning storm.

I watched in awe as he used his mana to create matrixes in the clouds above, then connected focal points from the matrixes and a path for the lightning to follow – a path linked to the ship that had exposed itself.

A ship that to me, looked heavily damaged already and too much of an obvious target.

When Frederick finished his casting, there wasn’t anything at first. He sighed and sagged to the deck, his mana in the single digits. I thought perhaps he’d messed up and miscast something.

Then the lightshow started.

A crack of thunder boomed as a light arced from the clouds above to the lantern ship, striking its mast and causing fire and destruction. The bolt was just the first of many, three more following it in quick succession. Five, seven, ten … the ship was broken and burning as it was pounded mercilessly. At its peak, the spell fueled 4 different strikes simultaneously!

The spell started slow and wound up to its peak before slipping back down again, the last bolt of lightning striking the burning ship nearly a minute after the previous one. As a side effect of the matrixes Frederick had seeded in the clouds, a light rain began to fall.

Many of the crew had looked on in awe of the spell until their superiors yelled at them they had people to save. The operation to recuse the crew of the Laya continued.

I waited for the shoe to drop. If Graves plan went as predicted, another ship was still out there and looking to board us, overwhelming our defenders and taking the Carpathia as a prize. The only battles I’d been in that didn’t offer some sort of surprise, though, were ones where I’d dominated unprepared enemies from below. Maybe it was the quickness which Graves had deduced the enemies’ plan that had me paranoid, but I thought it was too easy for strategy to be unfurled just like that. That ship had looked broken before Frederick’s spell had gotten it. Graves had been expecting bait, and bait had obligingly appeared. If Graves was operating off previous encounters and the Madu knew it … well, what better time to subvert expectations?

I was right, and I was wrong. The other shoe didn’t drop until we had all the survivors we could find pulled from the Laya’s wreckage and we turned to leave. There were two ships, though.

I spotted them first. Rather, I sensed them with my domain and pointed them out. There was some doubt over my claim I could see into the darkness better than any other lookout, but I passed it off as experience at sea and Graves overrode any objections, taking me at my word. A minute later, the two ships were in sight.

Nilfheim names its ships after ideals or concepts. It’s been a running joke among many sailors about how the less-reputable Madu name their ships, but no one was laughing to see the Vengeance and the Justice drop their cloaking field and open fire.

The bolts they fired were unenchanted munitions, still deadly if directly hit but hardly doing anything to reduce the ships’ durability. If you wanted to claim the ship you were attacking, you had to have a care what you threw at it. Poison probably would have been a better option for them, but if they had been having the same logistical trouble outfitting their ships that Graves had been complaining about, regular bolts might have been their only option.

The Carpathia wasn’t constrained by trying to save its munitions, only by the resources they had on hand. Our best supply had been transferred over to the more combat-ready ships of the fleet before we’d headed back to Antarus. So, aside from a few explosive bolts that Graves’ head artillerist ‘happened’ to still have, our retaliation wasn’t much more impressive.

Graves was cursing as he ordered Polis to arm any combat-capable survivors from the Laya. “We can’t outpace them – not on our best day and not with the flooding we have – so they’ll get to board us as they wish. We can make them bleed for it, but if they board us from each side …”

He trailed off, leaving it unsaid that we were facing a losing fight. Boarders tended to lose more bodies than defenders, but the Carpathia’s crew wasn’t exceptional enough to fight off numbers from two directions.

I privately wondered if I wouldn’t be trying to make a similar deal with the Madu that I’d just scored with Graves. Would it be better to just disappear? Or show a bit more of my abilities than I’d wanted to?

Siebert was the one to notice my musings and muttered something to Graves about ‘stone-cold’ while nodding in my direction.

“Mr. Dom, any insights?” Graves asked.

“Can your crew hold off one boarding party?”

He puffed up. “You’ve seen the men fight, every one of them is …”

“I have seen the men fight, Captain, and I have to say I’m not exactly impressed. Honest assessment as a tactician: could your men hold off one of those boarding parties?”

Graves’ eyes narrowed but he considered his response long enough that I knew he wouldn’t be grandstanding. “Yes. Better to fight the Vengeance, as far as I can tell, but I believe we could repel either of them if they tried us one at a time.”

“They’re not, though.” Polis reminded us.

“When they get close enough, tack right into the Vengeance. I’ll hop over to the Justice and cause some chaos. I’m confident I can delay them and keep them from boarding you on the port side. You deal with Vengeance, I stall the Justice, you turn around when you have the chance and fight her.”

“You’d love to find your way back to your friends, now wouldn’t …” Polis said, interrupted by Graves’ raised hand.

“You’re really arrogant enough to think you could last a minute alone on the enemies’ ship?” the Captain asked.

I shrugged. “I am. If I’m wrong, you still have a distraction on the Justice. If I’m right, I expect a bonus out of this.”

Graves scoffed, but didn’t object any further. “The Carpathia can’t sink both ships, but we can cripple their ability to take us on. If we make it too costly for them, they’ll leave and count sinking the Laya as their victory. That’s the best we can hope for.”

“You’re the tactician.”

“Yes, which makes me question why I’d agree to what you’re saying. How will you get back to the Carpathia if the Justice pulls away?”

“I’ll swim. Between my lifesaving achievements and swimming level, I should be able to catch up.”

Polis scoffed. “No way.”

“Then leave a line trailing behind the ship. I’ll just need to catch up to that.”

They seemed incredulous, but in the end if I failed to catch up it was still a better outcome than losing everything. They could give me a medal posthumously, assuming it didn’t get tied up in litigation and theories of how I’d just defected back to the Madu.

Graves continued to push the ship for all the speed he could milk out of her, hoping that the Vengeance would lead the Justice just a little bit in the chase. Our pursuit remained in lockstep behind us, however, gaining at a steady pace.

Frederick had the flood barrier and with a fortifying potion would provide magical support for the crew. He was exhausted and drained, though, and any higher-tier spells were more likely to backlash than succeed.

I waited crouched by the gunwale, avoiding any stray bolts sent our way. The artillery crews were still firing back and forth and occasionally causing injury, but the ships weathered the pinpricks easily. Without any enchantments, bolts were anti-personnel weapons and the people were mostly trying to stay in cover.

The Madu ships pulled abreast the Carpathia then closed the distance. 100 yards … 70 … 50 …

I summoned a pair of water whips, got a running start and leaped, diving over the side into the black waters that held no secrets from me within the range of my domain. I hadn’t overstated my swimming capabilities. I burned a bit of stamina and shot across the distance between ships. When I breached the surface my momentum carried me completely clear of the water.

My whips lashed to the gunwale and yanked me upwards, over the side of the Justice. A cast of feather fall and a bit of stamina gave me time to lash myself to the crosstrees and pull myself there, to shouts of alarm below.

I pulled out a bow and a handful of arrows, some judicious use of my 4 levels in archery at the quarterdeck – I was no eagle eye but I could hit a Madu-sized target – and the boarding team was rousted to try and take care of me quickly. I refused to let things be quick.

I cast several air blades to slice strategic lines, then cast a water shield as some below tried to shoot back at me. My shield was weak to penetrating attacks, but it slowed and redirected shots well enough to keep me from immediate harm while I tried to return fire from within. My attacks were less encumbered by my spell, but my accuracy still went down the drain. I got my desired effect though. Having scored a hit on whoever was in charge on the quarterdeck before casting my shield, my continued harrying arrows convinced them to pull the ship away from the Carpathia while they dealt with me.

It was a sound strategy – if they left me here I could shoot their boarding party in the back right before they established their foothold, making their effort moot. Alternatively, they could let the Vengeance hold its own for a few minutes, finish me off and rejoin the party.

I was so glad they made the logical decision.

Having achieved my initial goal, I added a layer to my water shield and froze it. Arrows were suddenly skittering off a hard, clear shell of ice or else breaking on impact. A few stuck, but none poked through.

Warriors scrambled up the rigging to the crosstrees. They were faster than human soldiers would be, but they also suffered from their strongest fighters lacking the seamanship skills to be adroit in this environment.

Five minutes down, Captain Graves, and I haven’t lost a single HP yet.

When the warriors started cutting at my shield, they didn’t hold anything back. A swordsman started hacking first, but was quickly joined by an axe wielder that was much more effective, causing gouges and spiderweb cracking through the ice. When his – actually her – axe broke through, it was with a smile of triumph. That smile disappeared as my harpoon jabbed her face.

With her constitution level, even that wasn’t lethal. The fall as she stumbled back off the crosstrees was.

I erupted from the remains of my protective sphere with half a dozen summoned water whips hovering around me like the limbs of a squid. The swordsman had to defend himself from half a dozen striking whips before I adroitly grabbed an ankle and yanked him off his feet. He quickly followed the axe-wielder down.

Looking down either side at the narrow rigging funneling fighters to me, it was easy to shoot at heads, leaving bodies tangled in the rigging or falling to the deck below. Seven more high-level fighters fell quickly.

There was a shouted command below, which sounded like an order to do something and do it now, no objections. I looked and saw a Madu wearing casters robes focused on me, extending an arm in my direction.

I cast water shield.

The lightning bolt utterly destroyed my shield, but the damage was redirected. I thanked Callis that air mages were a preferred caster on ships – if that had been a radiance beam or something similar, my shield wouldn’t have redirected it so well.

It was clear that they were done funneling fighters to me, however, and were going to smite me at range with magic. Time to switch things up.

I stepped off the crosstrees and fell, quickly at first but then light as a feather, before using my whips to pull me about. I was used to being on a submerged ship, swimming through the rigging. I knew where to look in a three-dimensional space for things to lash to.

The crew was obviously not expecting me to get down so quickly. Nor were they expecting me to dart below into the artillery deck.

Artillery decks were manned by artillerists. Artillerists could be many things, but rarely did they have high-level martial abilities.

A quick ready-to-deploy trap tossed behind me at the hatch I’d entered through, then I was among the Madu manning the ballista like an eel-hound at a fish hatchery.

I’d slain several artillerists and sent the rest scattering when the trap I’d left went off. It deployed a coil of razor wire in an erupting rats nest, creating an area of effect. When treated with a poison, it also caused that as secondary damage. That trap had a numbing agent on it. Not exactly a ‘dead-as-soon-as-you’re-cut’ trap but the effects lasted in storage and anyone cut up with numbing agent would be less combat effective.

Before I dealt with whoever I’d caught, I popped up another hatch to try and sow some more chaos. That backfired, as a warrior had the idea to come down the hatch at the same time and flank me. I tried to stab her, but she blurred with a professional skill and a heartbeat later a knife was jutting from the center of my chest.

We both looked at it, then each other in surprise. Me because I’d never been stabbed in the chest and it wasn’t what I was expecting. She was surprised that the strike hadn’t done any bonus critical damage.

“Heart’s not there,” I said before coughing and tasting blood. Not to say my lungs weren’t, and she’d at least nicked the left one. My HP had lost a solid chunk.

Before she attacked me again I stepped back into the artillery deck. It was flooding with combatants, so I made a dash and went down into the storage area.

I wouldn’t jinx anything by heading for the bilges, would I?

I ignored the knife in my chest as best I could. The fact that ignoring it was possible … well, like I’d said: it didn’t happen to be a critical hit and I was resistant to physical damage. I expected that pulling it out would cause a catastrophic bleed effect though.

I caused a lot of confusion, and after killing a few low-level crewman who were either working or hiding down here and seeding more traps around the hold, I stealthed and snuck back upwards before they narrowed down where I was.

Aaaaand was promptly spotted, and chased topside.

I didn’t know how much time I’d bought Graves and the Carpathia, but the Justice’s crew had their blood up and wouldn’t turn down jumping into another fight. Then again, my blood was up too. I’d once thought that I didn’t have any racial bias against the Madu, but I had a personal one. The way I saw it, they were responsible for causing the attack on the Wind Runner and my subsequent handoff to Davy Jones. I didn’t mind grinding my axe on them.

A warrior met me on the deck, medium armor deflecting my weapons and generously applied skills knocking me about. I withdrew by grabbing the quarterdeck behind me without looking – courtesy of domain – and yanked away.

The warrior chased me up the steps, but by that time I’d selected a vial of nasty stuff from my bag. The thin glass vial broke on her armor, creating a small cloud that powdered her neck and the corrugated red cartilage framing her face. She hissed, breathed in a whiff of it, and a moment later she was fighting to breathe with tears flooding her eyes. She was still deadly, giving me three bleeding cuts before I channeled shocking touch through my weapon. Between the shock and affliction she was dealing with, I was able to capitalize on her handicaps and finish her.

Another pair of warriors were rushing up either side of the quarterdeck. I growled and ducked by the abandoned helm to jump back onto the main deck. I was surrounded by combatants, but these ones were not the professional warriors. Water whips flicked out at all who surrounded me, I had no blind spot. Air blades cut at those who stayed beyond my reach. Patches of ice froze on the deck in my wake. My movement buffs kept me from immediate harm as I danced and darted, fear or brazenness causing most of my opponents to give me openings.

A Madu started shouting. It was only as a wide buffer of space appeared around me that I realized that she’d been shouting for them to stop, and interspersing her commands with the human word ‘stop’ as well.

I rose from my crouch and tried to control my ragged breathing. My health was two-thirds gone, and while water shield and shocking touch had been the most intensive spells I’d cast, repeated low-level casting had my mana running low. It would be time to slip over the side soon. First, what did this Madu officer who’d commanded the professionals not to engage want?

She was tall and rail thin, well dressed in the Madu fashion – articles of clothing covering nearly all scales – but the fine scales around her face made her look weathered and aged. All Madu had gravelly, echoing voices, but hers sounded like someone who’d inhaled too much smoke.

“Good sir,” she said. “Please tell us what we have done to turn the wrath of Seaborn on our own heads?”

A moment and I pulled the prompt I was expecting from where it was buried in the notifications of my kills.

Your ability “Hide True Nature” has failed!

Humph. If this Captain had the analyze level to see through my ability, she’d seen through my enchanted necklace too. My identity was laid bare before them.

But they seemed to have a respect for me? Even after I’d killed … how many?

“You’re attacking a ship that is under my protection.” I said.

The Captain nodded. “We understood that the Death’s Consort was your sole interest. We will let it be known that the Carpathia is off limits, and I’ll send word to the Vengeance to withdraw immediately. This should not have occurred, however. Why does the lieutenant of Jones now attack the Madu as well as the master? Are you not to keep balance?”

“Balance?” I asked. “Tell me of what Jones has been doing.” Before, this was where Jones would override me and keep me from hearing anything. Now, I got an answer.

“Your master has been interfering, destroying settlements and key tacticians and ships. Our seers believed that he was embodying an aspect of the tide, pulling the war in one direction while he sent you to the Broken Isles to pull it in the other, destroying the human’s control there.”

“Jones has been targeting alliance ships? None from the confederacy?” I clarified.

“None,” the Captain replied. “This … surprises you? You did not know?”

“My master and I are not in agreement on several things, and he did not tell me his plans or the reasons for mine.”

“Then … you are now fighting for the humans as well? There is no one balancing the sea?” the Captain looked horrified.

“I don’t think there ever was. Jones had me causing trouble in the Broken Isles, but it wasn’t anything compared to what he could do if he wished. And I’d appreciate if you didn’t pass the word about me being with the Carpathia – I’m still at war with them and they failed to see through my disguise as you did.”

I suppose that was the moment I realized that I had to cooperate with this Captain. They would have disengaged with apologies to ‘Captain Seaborn’ making Graves wonder what in the depths I’d done. Now, knowing I wished to keep my identity secret, they had a temporary lever on me if they intended to use it. I might be able to heal up, come back and finish off the crew later, but not before they could spoil my ride home.

“Forswear any future hostilities against ships flying the flag of Nilfheim, and we will keep your secret from the humans.”

I growled and shifted my weapon in hand. “You’ll recall you ambushed our ship.”

“A mistake of identity that we have paid with the blood of our crew,” the Captain said. I’d heard they didn’t form emotional bonds in the same way humans did, but there was definitely a tightness to the Captain’s voice as she spoke of her losses. “You tell me the balance of the sea is gone. I seek to protect my nation as best I can.”

“I don’t know what the future holds, but swearing peace to your nation isn’t something that’s worth my cover here!” I said heatedly. “I will swear to let the Justice and Vengeance go without any further casualties, and if you do not reengage I will not hunt you.”

The Madu’s eyes were framed in their face such that they often looked wide-eyed, but I could tell that my vehemence caught the Captain off guard. “I thought that you were the fair one to the other races? The records of your crew spoke of your cruelty, but also your fairness.”

“I …” I stammered. I wasn’t racist, I just hated the Madu for what they’d done to me. Or had contracted Jack to do the Wind Runner. It was a reasonable justification. “I was fair to the other races. Nilfheim earned my disfavor on its own.”

“What interaction has Domenic Seaborn ever had with the Madu?” The Captain said with heat. “You were weaned with the prejudice of Antarus and never had any meaningful interaction with our race. We thought you to be the balancing force! Yet …”

“Yuthe Seel,” I hissed, naming the Madu lady who’d been the handler for Lawless Jack. It was her fault! Her actions had led to Jack throwing me in the deep and my unfair deal with Jones.

But I didn’t blame Jack, or his race of Chortin now did I?

“Lady Yuthe?” The Captain asked, taken aback that I could name someone, and that whatever research they had on me had missed something as pivotal as a hatred for their race. “I … I apologize, Seaborn. I will take this matter back to the matriarchs. I promise you that we will investigate and beg of you to head the matriarchs’ verdict and petition. I will accept your offer of non-aggression to the Justice and Vengeance, and …” the proud Captain hesitated. “Please speak with your master on our behalf. Our position was tenuous to start and dire after his actions. If Davy Jones and Domenic Seaborn are both set against us, there is no way that we will prevail against the confederacy.”

“My master and I are not on speaking terms at the moment,” I said. “But I will add what you’ve said to the list of things I need to hash out with him.”

The Captain hissed – I thought in surprise at my little statement of rebellion – and then bowed in the human fashion before ordering her crew to clear a path to the gunwale.

I dropped over the side, all sorts of confused. What was Jones’ angle? What was with the Madu? And must I listen to the niggling doubt in my head that my vendetta with Nilfheim wasn’t justified?

First things first: the dagger that had been meant for my heart.

I topped off my mana with potions – these ones looted from a ship and tasting much better than the first ones I’d used – and added some HP to my pool with a health potion to give myself some room to breathe. I pulled the dagger from my chest in a swift movement. The pain that I’d been able to ignore amplified, stealing my breath before making me shout. It took more HP from me when removing it, and the heavy bleeding status it created made me glad I’d fortified myself with a health potion.

I cast replenishing waters for the first time. The deeper magic spell chewed through my entire mana pool, but I felt a wave of water roll from my chest where my heart should be outward through my body. A moment later I was healed from the hole in my chest and all other injuries.

That … that felt amazing. Not just a good feeling from being whole and hale, but it felt right! Like when my perk Heart at Sea had first appeared on my stats. Casting spells like this was what I should be doing.

I wondered if it had anything to do with the affinity Marcus had said I’d had for life magic. We hadn’t been able to awaken it in me, but maybe it synergized with the healing spell of my deeper magic.

I swam in the direction of the Carpathia. Graves’ doubt that I could catch up was laughable, as the ship was hardly making headway even after the Vengeance had pulled away. There was maybe half a mile to swim.

It amused me to find that someone had indeed left a line trailing behind the ship. It was long, but hardly the length that would have saved me if I was having difficulty catching up. Still, it made for an easy access point and I hoisted myself up and onto the quarterdeck. The officers startled as my wet boots thudded down but caught themselves before drawing weapons.

“Dom!” Graves shouted in surprise. “You’re alive!”

No cries of ‘Seaborn’ so the Madu kept their word. “I did exactly what I’d claimed I’d do and you ask me if I’m alive? You of little faith …”

“We heard what you claimed, hence our incredulity you’ve returned. What happened, man? I was ready to split the troops at a moment’s notice, but you kept the Justice away until we drove the Vengeance off.”

Good, they thought they’d frightened the Madu away rather than them having an orderly withdrawal. “I took some inspiration from the Tales of Jordan Voyager: they swallowed me up and I made myself so irritating they spat me back out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to change out and talk to cook – Gerald – about that stew he was making.”

Of course they didn’t let me go that easily, and I gave them an overview of my battle. I was even truthful up until my conversation with the Captain. I cut that part out of the story and claimed I’d jumped into the sea at that point, the Vengeance already pulling back and the pair of ships cutting their losses.

Finally, I was released. Frederick even agreed to man the flood barrier for a few hours so I could get some rest. I made my way to the kitchen where Gerald was handing out food to the crew as they trickled in between their other duties or before sleep.

“Dom!” He exclaimed in his flanging tones. “You’re back! You’re … stars, are you okay?”

“I don’t know, Gerald.” Up top I’d been chill and composed, the picture of a mercenary who’d known what they were dong and had no regrets. Here with Gerald … my mask was slipping even as I realized it was a mask. “I’m tired, and I’ve got blood in my clothes again.”

I took a bowl of stew and sat in the corner with it, though I stripped off most of my light armor first and shoved it in my bag, rank and bloody.

Gerald slowly crouched down in front of me as I dove in. It took me a moment to realize he was staring at the bloody hole in my shirt where the dagger had gone through.

“Something on your mind, Gerald?”

“I’m just wondering … when did you become so scary?”

I grunted. “Everyone’s a monster if you push them right. I just … I’m trying to figure out whether I can be plain old Dom again.”

Gerald nodded slowly. “Well, just remember to lean on your friends when you need it, alright?”

He left me to my meal and the tears threatening to flood my eyes. Sadeo … Rhistel … if only I’d leaned on their friendship when things had gotten hard before.